FBI had an independent basis for investigating Carter Page: Our view

When you don’t want something to get much attention, you sit on it for weeks, then put it out on a Saturday afternoon when most normal people have forgotten the original controversy and are otherwise occupied.

That’s the backdrop to this weekend’s release of a Democratic memo countering what amounted to a Republican hit job on the FBI and the Justice Department for their handling of a wiretap of Carter Page, a former adviser to the Donald Trump campaign.

The Democrats’ memo neatly counters many of the Republican allegations of sinister doings behind the 2016 wiretap of Page. The release, by the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, was as welcome as it was belated. True to form, Trump’s focus was on himself. He railed against the Democratic memo, tweeting that it “is a total political and legal BUST. Just confirms all of the terrible things that were done. SO ILLEGAL!”

For starters, the president and the Intelligence Committee should be focused on getting to the bottom of Russia’s attack on America’s democracy, rather than spinning convoluted conspiracies about a wiretap that was approved and renewed by four federal judges, all appointed by Republican presidents.

The public would have been better served had the Democrats’ rebuttal been made public at the same time as the hastily released Republican memo.

That memo, put out more than three weeks ago, accused the FBI of using an explosive dossier written by former British spy Christopher Steele to persuade a judge on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also known as the FISA court, to grant a warrant for a wiretap in 2016 on Page. The key allegation: The FBI failed to inform the judge that Steele had been hired to do opposition research funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

According to the redacted Democratic memo, the Justice Department did tell the court that the dossier’s author “was hired by politically motivated” people to gather information “to discredit” Trump’s campaign.

Further, according to the Democratic memo, the FBI had an independent basis for investigating Page, who had “resided in Moscow from 2004-2007,” pursued business dealings with a state-owned energy company and had been targeted for recruitment by at least two people indicted in 2013 as Russian spies.

That’s quite a different picture than the one painted by Republicans, who had hyped the Page wiretap as the scandal of the century.

If there were any abuses in the wiretap, let the Justice Department’s inspector general investigate. And if Page were eventually charged with a crime, his lawyers would surely raise the issue as part of his defense.

Meanwhile, the competing memos are a sideshow. The main event is special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, which continues to roll up guilty pleas and indictments, and which must be allowed to continue unimpeded.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.